Thursday, January 5, 2017

The Collapsing Empire - John Scalzi

The Collapsing Empire is the first in a new sci-fi series by
John Scalzi. I’ve enjoyed Scalzi’s work before – his “Old Man’s War” is
seminal, and “Redshirts” was delightfully high concept sci-fi with a bit of
bite to it. I came to this latest effort with high expectations – and I’m happy
to say that The Collapsing Empire is clever, self aware sci-fi, with some
interesting ideas. It’s also rather funny.

The setting is a star-spanning collective, the
Interdependency. It’s filled with space habitats – from huge stations to small
settlements; these and other sealed environs sustain most of humanity. Each
series of habitats sits inside a system tied together by the ‘Flow’, a sort of
wormhole network – starships can enter the Flow in one system, and be decanted
into another after a certain amount of flight time. Quite how the Flow works,
and exactly why it ties the systems together, is less well understood. This
sprawling network of human settlements is tied together by the habitable world
of End, which sits far from the seat of political and trading power that is the
imaginatively named ‘Hub’.

Scalzi does a great job of bringing End to life – a world
populated by noble families with an entrenched sense of privilege, each with a
monopoly on particular goods, working alongside guilds of workers to both
maintain and expand their monopolies, a microcosm of the social structure of
the Interdependency. Both the Nobility and the Guilds run alongside a universal
Church, which itself appears to have a fair degree of soft power, and all sit
below the “Emperox”. The Emperox is the head of the Church, the top of the heap
of the nobles, and, not coincidentally, holds the Guild monopoly on starship
and weapons construction. The social
constructs make sense, and they act as a vivid, fascinating backdrop for the
characters driving the narrative.

Speaking of characters – there’s a fair few of these kicking
about. Our core focus is on the nobility and the Emperox. The latter is new at
her role, having become heir apparent after an unexpected accident removed the
preferred candidate. She’s wry, self-deprecating, and clearly intelligent – but
very much unprepared, and thrown into a sink-or-swim environment. Watching her
deal with the realpolitik climate in which she finds herself, whilst grappling
with both larger issues and her own personal struggles makes for compelling
reading.

Another core character is a member of one of the noble houses
of End, also an expert on the physics of the Flow. He’s given a simple but
vital mission, and then has to arrange to get away from End in order to achieve
it. This means getting out of a war zone, evading powerful interests seeking
him for their own ends, and then trying to make a pitch to the most powerful
people in the Interdependency. He spends
a large portion of the book also being introduced to the harsh realities of the
world – occasionally at gunpoint – and discovering that the universe may not
work exactly as he hopes it does, as he mixes in with the less noble members of
his society. There’s an idealism here, and a sense of straightforward honest which
contrasts nicely with the third member of the triad.

The third key character is a daughter of the noble houses, and
owners representative on a starship. She’s coolly pragmatic, and typically
thinks several steps ahead of her adversaries (and people who think they’re her
friends). She’s also obviously very clever, or perhaps so sharp she cuts
herself. This intelligence is backed up by a strong sense of self, and masked
by a diverting amount of profanity. Her dialogue is always profane, but also
typically intriguing, and absolutely sizzling with energy. If she’s shown with
less of a journey than the other two central characters, it’s because of
starting off more aware of who she is, and the roles she’s willing to play.

They’re faced by antagonists who are, in fact, rather
similar to the protagonists – rich, powerful individuals, prepared to do a
great deal to secure or extend their own positions. Here too are intelligences
which could drill through steel. They’re as focused and driven as our protagonists,
and less villainous than pragmatic, with goals opposed to the protagonists.
They are, perhaps, slightly more morally flexible – but it’s possible to look
at the opposition to our heroes, and empathise with them.

The plot – well, as the title implies, it’s focused on the
end of the universe. Or at least, the Interdependency, and the complex web of
systems which enable it to function. I don’t want to give anything away, but
suffice to say, keeping the Interdependency from collapsing, ameliorating that
collapse, or even surviving it, looks to be a rather big job. Watching the
quickfire conflicts, largely dialogue rather than combat, is a delight,
especially when some of the back and forth is laugh-out-loud funny, and other
parts approach some of the big questions of sci-fi – who we are, why society is
structured as it is, what we might do with the opportunity and necessity of reshaping
the universe and ourselves. There’s some wonderfully tense political scenes,
and some moments of spacefaring action that are both heart-stopping to read,
and absolutely great fun.

In summary then, this is a cracking piece of sci-fi; broad
in scope, with interesting characters in a believable world, which asks and
quietly tries to answer some hard questions – whilst also providing a story
which won’t let you put it down.